Barack Obama's campaign has focused on the employment figures released
Friday showing the rate dropped last month in nearly all the
battleground states.

“He's forgetting what his own positions are, and he's betting that you will too,” Obama told a boisterous crowd in Virginia.

“He's changing up so much – backtracking and sidestepping,” he said.
“We've gotta name this condition that he's going through. I think it's
called ‘Romnesia.’”

Intensifying the battle for women voters, Obama charged that Mitt
Romney had changed his tune on abortion, equal pay for equal work and
access to contraception.

“If you come down with a case of Romnesia, and you can't seem to
remember ... the promises you've made over the six years you've been
running for President, here's the good news: Obamacare covers
pre-existing conditions,” he said.

The Republican team hit back.

“Women haven’t forgotten how we’ve suffered over the last four years in
the Obama economy with higher taxes, higher unemployment, and record
levels of poverty,” Virginia state legislator Barbara Comstock said.

The Republican National Committee also jumped in, saying the President
was breaking a vow he made during the 2008 campaign to avoid
name-calling.

REUTERS/Jim Young

“If you come down with a case of Romnesia, and you can't seem to
remember ... the promises you've made over the six years you've been
running for President, here's the good news: Obamacare covers
pre-existing conditions,” Obama says.

Meanwhile, the Obama campaign seized on figures released Friday showing
the unemployment rate dropped last month in nearly all the battleground
states that are the key to the election.

The unemployment rates in Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa now are all under
the national average of 7.8 percent. Obama victories in that trio of
battlegrounds would all but guarantee his re-election.

Republicans dismissed the numbers, pressing their case that Obama has no real plan to reignite the economy.

“You did not hear any vision for a second term agenda from the
President,” Romney running-mate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), said in
Milwaukee.

“He is going to try and win this election by tearing down his opponent, not by offering a positive vision or agenda.”

The attacks came as a wave of newspapers in swing states made their endorsements.

The Tampa Bay Times and Denver Post backed Obama; The Orlando Sentinel, which backed Obama in 2008, endorsed Romney.

“We have little confidence that Obama would be more successful managing
the economy and the budget in the next four years,” the Sentinel said.